MUST READ
Shuler, UMW’s Roberts, Warren: Private hedge funds destroy workers and companies
People’s World
By PAI
December 15, 2021
Continuing a decades-long record of predatory financial sector capitalism, multibillion-dollar hedge funds, accountable only to their secret investors, swoop in to devour companies, devastate workers, destroy jobs, and then escape with the profits. So say, in so many words, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Jim Baker, head of the non-profit Private Equity Stakeholders Project, which monitors and stands up for victims.
Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown back striking Warrior Met Coal mineworkers
Alabama Political Reporter
By Eddie Burkhalter
December 15, 2021
After 258 days of a strike by Alabama’s Warrior Met Coal mineworkers, U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown call for the company to begin meaningful negotiations and return workers’ pay and benefits. “This is the longest strike in the history of Alabama that we can find,” Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, said during an online Tuesday briefing with reporters hosted by AFL-CIO that focused on private equity companies and their impact on Alabama mineworkers and others. Liz Shuler, president of AFL-CIO, explained that in 2015 the Alabama mine’s former owner, Water Energy filed for bankruptcy and a group of private equity firms, led by New York-based Apollo Global Management, bought the Alabama mine. “Apollo likes to claim that by investing in Warrior Met they helped save mineworkers’ jobs, but it was the mineworkers’ sacrifice, giving up their pension plan, retiree health care and wages, all to save jobs and make Warrior Met’s mines minds profitable,” Shuler said.
JOINING TOGETHER
Indie developer Vodeo Games forms first North American game industry union
Protocol
By Nick Statt
December 15, 2021
The North American video game industry made a significant step toward improved labor conditions with the recognition of its first employee union, at the small indie developer Vodeo Games. Vodeo, formed by Threes creator Asher Vollmer earlier this year, voluntarily recognized the employee union, which covers both full-time employees and more than half of the 13-person staff, who are independent contractors. The studio is entirely remote and includes employees and contractors in the U.S. and Canada. The union, Vodeo Workers United, is represented by the Communications Workers of America, which has over the past few years spearheaded efforts to help game studios organize. Earlier this year, CWA helped Paizo, a maker of popular tabletop games, form the first North American union in the tabletop industry.
Defector
By Albert Burneko
December 14, 2021
The agreement, according to the union’s threaded tweets, includes immediate pay increases, a salary floor, guaranteed annual raises, and a host of other provisions related to hiring, workplace protections, and benefits. It’s a win for the union, which went on strike around the Thanksgiving holiday—leaving managers to run it without the people who do its actual work during what’s typically one of the site’s busiest and most important times of year. The union then filed a labor grievance with the National Labor Relations Board after Times management retaliated by withholding the holiday pay to which the striking workers were entitled.
The Ongoing Strike Against Kellogg's
New York Public Radio
December 15, 2021
After 10 weeks the Kellogg's labor dispute is only escalating after the company announced plans to hire permanent employees to replace the 1,400 workers who remain on strike -- a move criticized by President Joe Biden. It comes as the union representing workers rejected a tentative agreement with little indication on how they'd compromise. HuffPost labor reporter David Jamieson has the latest and frames this strike within the modern labor movement and the larger context of history.
VOTING RIGHTS
Martin Luther King Jr.'s family to launch campaign urging Congress to pass voting rights
AZ Central
By Tara Kavaler
December 15, 2021
Martin Luther King III and his family and other advocacy groups announced Wednesday they will spend Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday in Phoenix to rally and organize for voting rights. The march will kick off a nationwide campaign with more than 50 other groups to press Congress to pass federal legislation protecting the right to vote ahead of the national MLK holiday, observed annually on the third Monday in January. The family will be joined in Arizona by a consortium of state and local groups, including including the African American Christian Clergy Coalition (AACCC) , Arizona AFL-CIO, the Central Arizonans for a Sustainable Economy and the local branches of its sister organization UNITE HERE, an international union.